Applied Computing Techniques For Holographic Optical Tweezers

Daniel Gruss is a graduating senior in Physics and in the University Honors College. The public portion of his Honors thesis defense will be from 4:00-4:30 pm.

Optical tweezers are capable of trapping micron sized particles through the transfer of the
momentum of light. These capabilities are expanded through the use of computer controlled holograms
for beam shaping. This hologram creation is facilitated through the use of a spatial light modulator,
which is a liquid crystal device used to vary the phase information incident laser light. This thesis
presents the computational methods that were implemented to facilitate the modulator interface:
manipulating multiple traps in a sample simultaneously, incorporating camera input into the program
interface, correcting for optical imperfections in the beam path, and determining the optical
characteristics of the modulator. In each case, these methods led to an improvement in the usability of
the trapping interface as well as an increase in trap efficiency.